Nutritional status according to body mass index among the adult Munda population of Sundarban, West Bengal, India

Background: In India, the profile of body mass index and chronic energy deficiency in tribal society is a significant issue. In terms of various facilities, tribal people are separated from the general population. This paper examines the health structure of adult males and females from Munda tribes. Materials and Methods:  A cross-sectional community-based study was directed among the Munda tribe (N = 110) of Gram Panchayat Lahiripur, Sundarban, Block Gosaba, 24 Parganas (South), and Southern Bengal. Results: The proportion of Munda people who were malnourished (BMI 18.5) was very low. The WHO classifies men as undernourished at 23.72% and women as undernourished at 27.53%. According to Asia specific, the percentage of male undernutrition is 23.71, and the percentage of female undernutrition is 28.77. Conclusion: In both classifications, the incidence is lower in men than in women. This population has good nutritional status compared to the other tribes of the eastern part of the country

Purification and characterization of a gelatinolytic serine protease from the seeds of ash gourd <em>Benincasa hispida</em> (Thunb.) Cogn.

77-87In Ayurveda, Benincasa hispida (Thunb.) Cogn. (Ash gourd) was recommended for management of diabetes, peptic ulcer, and other diseases. This plant is rich in proteolytic enzymes and proteases have wide application in food and laundry industry. Therefore, the search for new potential plant proteases continues. A soluble gelatinolytic plant serine protease (AG2) had been purified from the seeds of Benincasa hispida. The molecular mass of the monomer was estimated to be about 11 kDa by SDS-PAGE and 11211.1 Da by MALDI-TOF. The protease activity was strongly inhibited by PMSF only but not at all by soyabean trypsin inhibitor and resists autodigestion. Thus AG2 belongs to subtilisin family. The optimum pH and temperature are 10.0 and 30°C respectively. This protease was quite stable in presence of a cationic surfactant, an oxidizing agent and in basic pH medium. The protease AG2 can hydrolyze casein, azoalbumin and TAME but it was inert towards BAPNA. The kinetic parameters Km and Vmax were 0.117 ± 0.00067 mM and 470.592 ± 0.631 unit mg-1 min-1 respectively using casein as substrate. The CD spectrum showed it as a typical α/β class of protease. The N-terminal sequence of first 17 amino acid residues (MQQFFNEPSSLLIVVVR) is unique in nature

An indole alkaloid from a tribal folklore inhibits immediate early event in HSV-2 infected cells with therapeutic efficacy in vaginally infected mice.

Herpes genitalis, caused by HSV-2, is an incurable genital ulcerative disease transmitted by sexual intercourse. The virus establishes life-long latency in sacral root ganglia and reported to have synergistic relationship with HIV-1 transmission. Till date no effective vaccine is available, while the existing therapy frequently yielded drug resistance, toxicity and treatment failure. Thus, there is a pressing need for non-nucleotide antiviral agent from traditional source. Based on ethnomedicinal use we have isolated a compound 7-methoxy-1-methyl-4,9-dihydro-3H-pyrido[3,4-b]indole (HM) from the traditional herb Ophiorrhiza nicobarica Balkr, and evaluated its efficacy on isolates of HSV-2 in vitro and in vivo. The cytotoxicity (CC50), effective concentrations (EC50) and the mode of action of HM was determined by MTT, plaque reduction, time-of-addition, immunofluorescence (IFA), Western blot, qRT-PCR, EMSA, supershift and co-immunoprecipitation assays; while the in vivo toxicity and efficacy was evaluated in BALB/c mice. The results revealed that HM possesses significant anti-HSV-2 activity with EC50 of 1.1-2.8 µg/ml, and selectivity index of >20. The time kinetics and IFA demonstrated that HM dose dependently inhibited 50-99% of HSV-2 infection at 1.5-5.0 µg/ml at 2-4 h post-infection. Further, HM was unable to inhibit viral attachment or penetration and had no synergistic interaction with acyclovir. Moreover, Western blot and qRT-PCR assays demonstrated that HM suppressed viral IE gene expression, while the EMSA and co-immunoprecipitation studies showed that HM interfered with the recruitment of LSD-1 by HCF-1. The in vivo studies revealed that HM at its virucidal concentration was nontoxic and reduced virus yield in the brain of HSV-2 infected mice in a concentration dependent manner, compared to vaginal tissues. Thus, our results suggest that HM can serve as a prototype to develop non-nucleotide antiviral lead targeting the viral IE transcription for the management of HSV-2 infections

Thermodynamic Study of Rhodamine 123-Calf Thymus DNA Interaction: Determination of Calorimetric Enthalpy by Optical Melting Study

In this paper, the interaction of rhodamine123 (R123) with calf thymus DNA has been studied using molecular modeling and other biophysical methods like UV–vis spectroscopy, fluoremetry, optical melting, isothermal titration calorimetry, and circular dichroic studies. Results showed that the binding energy is about −6 to −8 kcal/mol, and the binding process is favored by both negative enthalpy change and positive entropy change. A new method to determine different thermodynamic properties like calorimetric enthalpy and heat capacity change has been introduced in this paper. The obtained data has been crossed-checked by other methods. After dissecting the free-energy contribution, it was observed that the binding was favored by both negative hydrophobic free energy and negative molecular free energy which compensated for the positive free energies due to the conformational change loss of rotational and transitional freedom of the DNA helix

<i>In</i><i>vivo</i> efficacy of

<p>HM. BALB/c mice were fed with HM (0.25 or 0.5 mg/kg) or ACV (5 mg/kg) and after 8 h of drug treatment the animals were infected with HSV-2G (9 X 10⁵ pfu per animal) intravaginally. The challenged animals of test groups were fed with HM twice daily for 7 days. Development of lesions and death were observed three times daily, while brain and vaginal tissue were collected after sacrification on days 2, 4, 6 or 8 after infection, homogenized and centrifuged. The supernatant was used for the determination of virus yield by plaque assay. Mean lesion score [A], Mean±S.D. of virus yield at log₁₀ (PFU/organ) in vaginal tissue [B] and brain [C]. </p

Anti-HSV efficacy of HM.

<p>[A] <b>Plaque </b><b>Reduction </b><b>Assay</b>. Infected cells were treated with HM or ACV at 0.5-50 μg/ml, overlaid with methylcellulose and plaques developed after 2-3 days were stained. The % of plaque number reduction was calculated, and the effective concentration of drug that inhibited the number of viral plaques was interpolated from the dose-response curve. [B] <b>Time </b><b>course </b><b>analysis</b>. Inhibitory effects of HM and ACV at various time points prior to infection (-3 to -1 h), at the time of infection (0 h) and post-infection (2-24 h) with HSV-2 were evaluated by plaque reduction assay. Each bar represents the mean ± S.E.M of three independent experiments.</p

Histopathology of Genital tissue of Balb/C mice

<p>: uninfected [A], infected with HSV-2G [B], HSV-2G infected animals treated with 0.5 µg/ml of HM [C], and ACV at 5 µg/ml [D]. </p

Effect of HM on viral IE transcriptional events.

<p>[A] <b>EMSA</b>: HSV-2G infected Vero cells were treated with HM for 2 and 4 h and assayed for EMSA. Biotin-labelled oligo was present in Lanes 1-6; P, biotin labelled oligo, M, mock control. [B] <b>Supershift </b><b>assay</b>: nuclear extracts from HSV-2G infected HM treated cells for 4 h p.i. was pre-incubated with HCF-1 polyclonal antibodies, added with reaction mixture, applied to non-denaturing 4% polyacrylamide gels and visualized by autoradiography. P, free biotin labelled probe; ns, nonspecific binding. [C] HCF-1 or LSD1 were immunoprecipitated in HM treated virus infected Vero cell lysate and the association was confirmed by immunoblotting with anti-HCF-1 and anti-LSD1 antibodies. </p